Conversation with Danone Japan President Rodrigo Lima

On February 6th, I was pleased to speak onstage with Danone Japan President Rodrigo Lima.

Below are my takeaways from the conversation.

1. A rigorous, stage-gate innovation process is the key that leads to a ninety-percent product success rate, if you do things right.
2. Ideation is key to successful innovation. Most good ideas won’t work, so you need many of them AND to be comfortable with failure.
3. Monthly innovation meetings are exciting for staff and lead to success.
4. When local manufacturing is at capacity, seeking collaborative relationships with third parties is a means for driving rapid growth and remaining agile.
5. Source locally. Cater to local tastes. However, adhere to standards and processes that work for the entire global business.
6. Guaranteed supply is a critical service element for products in Japan, whereas stockouts might be annoying but tolerated in other countries.
7. An organization can handle no more than three strategic priorities at a time. When you have many priorities, you have none.
8. Boldness in decision-making is key to employee engagement. Be decisive and timely, even in decisions that might be distasteful or unpopular.
9. Sometimes, even the best products fail despite your best efforts. Don’t let it get you down. Learn from the failure and move on to the next product idea.
10. Company values and ethics matter. Be explicit, talk constantly about what is important and ensure your mid-level managers do the same, use quantitative metrics to track progress and publish these, and keep values and ethics at the front of mind in daily business and decision-making.